Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance. I think we are being tough on the coalition, because I remember those days in the lead-up to the election when the then Leader of the Opposition, now Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, would be everywhere, holding up this plan. His knuckles would be going white. He would be showing it. I was waiting for him to photo-bomb people while he was holding the plan. There he was, telling everyone, 'We have a plan.' This is the plan that said:

We will generate one million new jobs over the next five years …

'We will generate one million jobs'! 'We will'! Then we started looking at it and people started checking it out. Actually how will they generate those one million jobs? Here is a story. I just happened to come across this one back on 2 January this year, written by David Wroe under the headline 'Broken vows pile up as coalition's pledge of one million new jobs refuted'. It says:

The Abbott government faces further pressure over broken promises with a new analysis showing it will fall well short of its pledge to create 1 million jobs over five years.

This is only in a space of less than six months and they are already falling short. The article continues:

By combining employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics with Treasury's jobs growth forecast in last month's mini-budget, the library—

the Parliamentary Library—

calculated the Australian economy would add about 620,000 jobs over the next four years. Even allowing for a fifth year, the figures show the government will fall well short of 1 million new jobs.

Then I noticed another article by David Wroe. He was on a roll in early January. See what holidays do for you? They give you time to think. He says:

The Abbott government came up with its pledge to create 1 million jobs—

Wait for it. This is how they came up with their pledge 'We will create one million jobs'—

See this speech in context